CGR WEDNESDAY 082323 David Shestokas Rev Stephen Lee

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Naked products do not treat, reduce, cure or prevent disease. Welcome to Chosen Generation with your host, Pastor Greg Young. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that you should shoe forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

And now, Chosen Generation, where no topic is off limits and everything is filtered through biblical glasses. And now here's your host, Pastor Greg. And welcome to the program. Great to have you with me. Thanks so much for being here. I know you have a choice in where you can listen each and every day. And I thank you for keeping it tuned here to Chosen Generation Radio.

I've got a great program lined up for you today. I bet you didn't know that Billy Graham was in fact political. So many people believe that Billy Graham was apolitical, never got involved in anything political and that Franklin Graham is the aberration because of his outspokenness. Wait till you hear the story of 1968. We'll have Professor Luke Nictor with us at the bottom of our number three to talk about that. Top of that hour, we'll get into the fake news issue. Also today on the program, Claire Lopez, our National Security Expert joins Rick Manning, my co-host and I, as we talk about, let's not forget about the issues at our border. We'll be talking about that. And Melanie Collette will be with us and we'll get into a little bit of discussion about tonight's debate. How do you have a debate when the lead candidate isn't showing up and who are some of these people that are going to be on that stage?

That's going to be an interesting question to talk about. You're joining me right now and I'm really, really excited to have him with me. Of course, each and every week when we start our Wednesday program off, we start it with our constitutional originalist attorney and my dear friend from Illinois. He is a former candidate for Attorney General in Illinois.

He's a former prosecutor and just an all around great guy. David Shostakis is with me and he brings with him a gentleman that I'm very honored to have on the program today. We talked about this last week when the indictment broke in Georgia and it is my sincere pleasure to welcome both of these gentlemen to the program, Reverend Steve Lee and David Shostakis. Gentlemen, welcome. Good to have you with me. Thanks, Greg. Thanks so much, Pastor G. It's great to be with you today and I'm pleased to have Pastor Lee joining us and unfortunately, under the circumstances, I would have loved to have him on in many other capacities.

And that's what I want to begin with because I think people need to understand, you know, Pastor Steve, who you are and a little bit of your, you know, background because and actually you and I share a common link. I don't know and you'll have to tell us exactly that where you were, but I was on the floor of the Astrodome as a chaplain during Katrina. Really? Yes, sir. And then over the George R. Brown Center, which is where Operation Compassion was operating and you could see the contrast between how the Red Cross put people on World War II cots and Operation Compassion and the church put them on pillow-top king-sized beds with a 24-hour kitchen that essentially was actually cooked to serve. They'd make anything that those people wanted and give them any food that they needed and any assistance they needed and had meetings and the people available around the clock to help them while the Red Cross made them stand out in the parking lot and they were lucky if they get a bottle of water and then the Houston Texans threw them to the curb because, my God, you wouldn't want the refugees to have any contact with your fans.

And then the Red Cross, I went out to Southern California to San Diego to a DHS training where the Red Cross proceeded to tell the American Psychological Association that they treated them that way because, hey, they were all mental patients. Anyway, yeah. Interesting. You and I should probably have a conversation offline. Yeah.

But just if you want to go down that road, and I would not mind a little flashback turf. First of all, do you remember the smell? Oh, God, it was just an open sewer smell.

Yeah. Horrific. Yeah, the smell is something.

Yeah, the only place I got stuck, I had a rental four-by-four SUV and I got stuck down there. But the thing, the memory that stands out is all the garbage outside and the stink. It was terrible.

The smell was horrible. Well, I'll tell you another memory. Yeah. I'll tell you another memory, that stands out to me as well was as you know, they had a bunch of they had people in the in that basketball center, where the you know, okay, well, and and that had been taken over by the gangs. You know, the newspaper initially reported on that.

And then they then they mollified that they said, Oh, we're not going to talk about that. But the gangs took that over. The night before I got there, a nine year old girl was raped to death in there. We adopted five families worked with a local church there and an apartment complex to get three months worth of rent taken care of for five families.

That was the most I could do I do we didn't have more resources than that. I sat next to a father as we watched his two little girls play on the on the floor, which it was just terrible conditions in the Astrodome. But this was when they were kicking them out and saying you either need to get out and go on the street or go into the basketball arena. Because the Texans don't want you mixing with their fans.

And I just I just thought of something. Are you talking about the Astrodome or the Superdome? No, I know this is I was at the Astrodome.

I was in the I was in Texas. Okay. Okay. I was not at the Astrodome.

I was at the Superdome. Okay. I know. Well, I'll tell you there was there was a stench at the Astrodome as well. There was I mean, sorry.

Yeah, I I missed that connection. Okay. I was in downtown New Orleans. Ah, okay.

No, I was I was in Texas at the Houston Astrodome. And and I had enough coffee this morning, but apparently I did. Well, so so let's but we're not here. We're not here to talk all about that weekend when I agree. Let's just but okay, go ahead. Go ahead. All right. All right. Yeah, exactly. And you know what?

These are great memories for both of you. But I have but at the moment there we have something pressing that we need to we will we will hang on. We need to get a little bit of a pastor pastor sees background.

Because in fact, he's been charged along with President Trump and 17 other people. We're gonna get to that David. Hang on a minute. I've got I've got a plan. I swear to you.

I've got a plan. So Reverend Pastor Steve, tell besides that event and what you did there. Give us your background.

NC is law enforcement. Your your your involvement with being a chaplain and at the at ground zero. Several of the other places give us that just a quick run through of that resume and then David, I want you then to take on and explain the specific indictment counts that are being brought against the Reverend and then we'll carry into how that breaks out and and I want to talk about the danger that that is for the rest of us as well if they're successful.

So Steve, give us that background, please. I'm gonna I'm gonna make it very fast. Okay, because I want to defer to Dave here. And then we can unpack stuff after Dave talks.

Okay, yeah, let's do it that way. And and so yes, to all the above. And I'll summarize by this prior law enforcement from California, mostly local, but also some federal work for what was then called in is now called NC is I was an 1811 special agent with them stationed at Moffett Field in the San Francisco Bay Area in what's now so right in the heart of Silicon Valley where I grew up. And, and then went on to seminary 1988 for four years to Concordia Theological Center. And that was after serving 15 years, by the way, on the force, having also shown your Christian beliefs, your Christian faith to your fellow officers. Like for instance, one time I brought a group of officers from Mendocino County, California up to Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center for I know Mount Hermon very well.

He's an officer receipt. Yep. And yeah, I was summer staff. 7273 at Mount Hermon. I was in Mission Springs. Okay, we're having and june blake. Let's just do it. Yeah, absolutely.

My took my family there and had vacation beautiful. And in law enforcement, I've done virtually everything there is to accept undercover narcs. But even on that, I was backing the guys up. And and then was assigned as a as a as an agent to FCI foreign counterintelligence, counterterrorism out of Moffett Field, which is no longer there. And then went on seminary became a chaplain and continued to work. But yeah, the guys and gals that I worked with in law enforcement, they were very excited to see me go off seminary. They said, Hey, you can be a police chaplain and come back and minister to us because we need the help. And they needed they're talking about the 1980s.

Nowadays, and I just I've been I talk to cops all the time. Yeah, it's terrible what they face. Yes. Yeah.

Okay. And I'd love to unpack Katrina a little bit New Orleans. We may have you come back and do that. But but yeah, so so you also were at ground zero. You you were you volunteered your your time and your efforts at your at ground zero. You you created the peace officers chaplain association or something along the peace officer ministry.

So 501 c three nonprofit faith group where I had to raise the money, manage everything and then and specifically, it was designed to meet the needs of officers and their families. Yeah, yeah. So lots of different things. Yeah. So you and so you have been in service, and in national crises, and when a crisis would arise, you you had a call in your life to to go when when when the Word of God says, you know, who will go for me? You said, Lord, send me and you went.

Yeah. And as part of that, we we put out 35 to 40,000 law enforcement edition Bibles in five editions and several special editions over the years. And I wrote an introduction Bible study guide 96 pages at the front of that unpacking the Word of God for people in law enforcement showing how the Word of God applies to them in their lives and in their work. And so when a crisis like this election situation comes up, it would be natural for you to say, Hey, there are people who who who need ministry, there are people who need the Lord, there are people who need to be reached out to.

Well, I'll give you an example. And we just lost David for a second. He bumped down, but I think there he is. Oops. Post 911. I worked with the Billy Graham Evangelistics Association in lower Manhattan on 25th Street, they set up a prayer center. And they were staged, it was a staging area for both volunteers for ministering to workers and and victims and others. And it was also staging area for Christian materials. And we provided them initially with 8500 special edition 911 edition Bibles, only American Bible Society beat us. In terms of materials, we had 10,000 copies of a 32 page pamphlet for 911. Within, I think it was eight or nine days on the ground, distributing out of Billy Graham, and they were wonderful partner. And we did, we we eventually got a total of about 13,000 of those Bibles to New York. So it's written materials. I served as a trainer for them at the prayer center.

And then the teams would go out. I provided Bibles to my network through NYPD, and Port Authority PD and FDNY. Lots of different stuff like that. Well, thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah, I'm a shot here. Well, no, no, no, I'm going to him. I got this.

I I've done this for a couple of years. So David, now we have a gentleman who I think we've established the credentials that suggests that this is a man who many refer to as Americans chaplain, who has been involved in these kinds of critical events from coast to coast, not not just once, not just twice, not not sporadically, but but consistently for for for close to 30 years now. And, and now this individual has gone and and again, gotten himself, you know, present said, Lord, here I am, send me in in what I believe is probably one of the greatest crises of our lifetime. And and that and that is a an issue of, of a stole, in my opinion, a stolen election. And I've had a number of experts on my program that believe that same thing, you being one of those because you testified about these issues in front of the Pennsylvania legislature. Now you find yourself defending America's chaplain. Talk to us about these indictment charges.

What are the specific charges that he has been accused of? And then let's get into the uniqueness of George's Rico law. Thank you. Thank you, Greg. And Pastor Greg, thank you, Pastor Steve, I'm humbled to be with these two men of God at this particular point in time, and I'm honored that I'm going to have the opportunity to be part and parcel of Pastor Lee's defense. But I want to back up on this story for just a moment, because of course, last week, Pastor Steve and I both woke up with our phones blowing up on, I believe it was Tuesday morning, after these indictments came out late on Monday night.

And to find that he was listed among the 18 people indicted along with President Trump. One of the reasons that he and I were astounded was, back in November of 2020, the special purpose grand jury of Fulton County, put together by Fannie Willis, subpoenaed Pastor Lee to testify before this grand jury. But people should know that a subpoena issued by a state court that ends with the authority of the state to compel somebody's testimony ends at the state border.

And for them to move forward on it, they need to go to operation and the legal blessing of the state, of the residents of the people that they want to have testify. And so consequently, they sent the subpoena to Kendall County, Illinois, which is where Reverend Steve lives. And after a series of hearings that we went through in Kendall County, an argument, the judge in Kendall County made a particular finding, that Reverend Lee was not even a material witness to the matters before the special purpose grand jury, and then quashed the subpoena and said, no, we're not going to compel him to go to Georgia. And after that, we never heard anymore from Fulton County. We never heard from Fulton County.

They didn't reach out to me, they didn't issue another subpoena, they didn't reach out to Reverend Steve. And so from that standpoint, when there was a finding that he wasn't even a witness, we were really astounded to wake up to hear that he was a defendant. You know, it was just it was just an incredible, incredible, almost a shock.

Stunning, stunning, I would think right. I mean, if he doesn't qualify to even be a witness worthy of being called to testify, how does he suddenly become a defendant as as as though he's committed? I mean, they're saying they are accusing him of being a part of an organization to commit a crime. That's correct.

That's correct. And so now we move along after that, but I think it wasn't it's important for people to know that a judge outside of Georgia said, there's not even enough here to have him before the special grand jury, right, let alone become become a defendant. So now that that happened, we do you want to bring up, David, do you want to bring up because I think that speaks to also the integrity of this state's attorney general or not state. She's a federal, right? No, no, she's a district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia. So this really, but but she has been one who throws out that she abuses.

I think one one could say from a charge under these Georgia RICO laws, school teachers and school administrators, and rappers and street street musicians to the best of my knowledge was an actor. She has she has cases going on in that regard. And she's won a couple of convictions under those. But all those convictions are under appeal.

So those convictions are not final. But she has used this Georgia RICO law to sweep a broad group of people into court that you would not normally expect to be in a courtroom. And a RICO law, which stands for Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, is generally speaking created to go after mob bosses or street gangs, organized crime activities where generally speaking the you've got the folks that commit the crimes and then you've got the people at the top using plausible deniability. And it's generally speaking a method to bring in everybody that's involved in typically violent crimes or crimes of fraud and huge kind of like money laundering and those kinds of things.

It's certainly not intended to do things with school teachers and rappers. And certainly now people that are contesting elections or ministers that knock on or ministers that knock on doors, let alone ministers that knock on doors. That's exactly right. There's four specific counts involving reverently within this RICO RICO claim, two of which involve him knocking on a door. He knocked on a neighbor's door, knocked on the door of a woman by the name of Ruby Freeman, who became fairly infamous, shall we say, by a viral video showing her taking a box of what appears to be ballots out from underneath the table and then apparently running them through a ballot counting machine.

During the aftermath of the counting, well, the counting of the ballots after the November 2020 presidential election. And so as a result of that, there was a firestorm going on in Georgia about all those things. And as you mentioned, when when there's a crisis in America, Pastor Lee is is there.

Yes. You know, Pastor Lee is there when there's a crisis in America. And so during the course of that time, he did, in fact, knock on a couple of doors and made a couple of phone calls. And as a result of him knocking on two doors and being involved in a couple of phone calls, they say that he was part of a criminal enterprise to overturn the presidential election in Georgia. And this whole RICO charge, Pastor G, is dangerous. The people that are cheering on these these prosecutions and these charges have no understanding what kind of danger they're personally putting themselves in. Besides the horrible things regarding Pastor Lee, you know, certainly doesn't, cannot be characterized as criminal.

They are saying that it's illegal for lawyers to give legal advice. Well, let's see. Before we before we cross, before we cross that bridge, let me just go to Pastor Lee, just very quick for a quick question. Pastor Lee, have you ever, do you know President Donald John Trump? No, I do not. I've never, never met him.

Okay. And and just out of curiosity, I mean, although all of us, you know, who supported him, right? We, we told our friends about, you know, that he was running and we encouraged our friends to vote for him. But did you have an official capacity with the Trump campaign? No, no, no. Let me, let me clarify something right here.

I've spent a lifetime being apolitical in terms of public duty, first of all, in law enforcement, both local and federal. Stay clear of that stuff like the plague. I saw that in an interview that you did, sir. Yeah. And you know, different Christian pastors have a little different take or approaches or pragmatic kinds of considerations or theological considerations.

I know, I'm one of those hard cases. Yeah, yeah. You might need to, you might need to pray for me, Pastor. You might need, you might need to pray for me, Pastor. In my tradition, okay, yeah, we're very, very careful about giving the appearance of political involvement and are cautioned against that, because we need to minister to everybody. And so what I've tried to do is, first of all, express what the Word of God tells us and that is God is love and God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

So the gospel is for everybody. Now let me finish. All right.

Take a sec. So what I say is, is I'm not You give a, you give a preacher the platform, you're going to get a sermon. That's what's going to happen. I know that.

I do that. You feel it coming, right? So hey, you're, you're non-denom evangelical. You know, you've got to give me my wings. I'm working on it, but I don't, but, but remember that we're in it.

We're in a refined time, but yes. 15 or 20 minutes in the pulpit. Once in 45 minutes. So I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to take guest privileges here. All right, go ahead.

Once in a while he needs to do a commercial though, too, Pastor Lee. Yeah, well, and I've got that underneath there, by the way, Illinois family.org forward slash contribute designate Reverend Steve Lee. Go ahead. Okay. All right.

Bottom line is this. I am principal based, not politically based. Okay. Now, so for instance, I would be happy to be a guest or speak to any kind of setting, not just one particular kind. I get it.

But here, but yeah, the gospel, but pastor, let me, let me, I appreciate what you're saying, but let me just, let me hold this for a second because, because you have made my point 1,010%. And David, that is this Rico suggests an organized effort. Therefore those that would be a party to that would have to somehow be a part of some kind of organization somehow in any way you mentioned plausible deniability.

Okay. So someone could argue and say, well, that's okay. It doesn't matter that he didn't know president Trump. He was still doing his bidding by some nefarious means because somebody else in the organization was directing him to do that.

And we've just clearly established that that wasn't the case. No one told him to go. No one, no one instructed him to go. He had no connectivity to the Trump campaign whatsoever of any type of any kind, period, end of story. Okay.

And he was not operating in a political manner. Go ahead, David. That's it.

That's exactly right, Greg. And the, the statute required, what's interesting about the statute in terms of being required for a conviction is the, well, let's go back to the indictment. The indictment lists what they call 161 overt acts in furtherance of a conspiracy. But the actual language of the statute requires for a conviction for any individual that they commit two predicate crimes, that they commit two predicate crimes. So the language of the indictment does not track the language of the statute.

And so it's going to be very, as far as we know, it's almost impossible. So that's one, that's one problem with that. The next problem is, of course, that the people that are operating and charged under the RICO laws within this indictment are supposedly involved in a common enterprise. And that common enterprise is defined in the indictment basically as the goal to overturn the 2020 election. And for the reasons that you're describing for, regarding pastor Lee's history and that personal, personal, personal reasons for being in Georgia, that is for the purpose of crisis, crisis help, there's literally no connection to the charges.

And so we're going to defend those vigorously. But people do not understand that, yeah, they have twisted the law so much that knocking on doors is supposedly an overt act. Participating in a telephone call is supposedly an overt act. Those are of the four charges involving pastor Lee.

He's supposedly on two phone calls and supposedly knocked on a couple doors. But that's, and you know, so supposedly, apparently, it will be illegal for a Jehovah's Witness or folks from the Latter-day Saints to come and knock on your door and, you know, offer whatever pastoral services they wish to offer. Well, or members of the Baptist Church that go out, yeah, members of the Baptist Church that go out and do calls on people that leave their information in the offering plate. I know that is something that doesn't happen as much as it used to, but back in the day, that was a very common thing that you would have a slip like that and you would say, hey, like a personal visit. And there were teams, whether it was Baptists or other denominations, I was a part of that. We had a non-denominational church in Texas and we would go out and we would knock on doors and we would answer that invitation that they had given by writing their name down and saying, yes, we'd like a visit. And we'd go and we'd say, hey, how are you today? Can we pray for you?

Is there anything in particular you have need of? And just minister to them. But that would be, that would now be potentially a hostile and criminal act. The other piece to this that you started to get into, and I'd like you to talk about that, is, you know, legal counsel. I mean, how often do you have a situation and everybody has this? I mean, that's why it's big business to pay a monthly fee so that you can reach an attorney and ask them about specific issues that you may deal with in the course of your month.

That's it. There's businesses, people have built businesses by selling that service. Now under this RICO law, under this act that this out of control Georgia DA has created, it suggests that if you do that, not only might you be a criminal, but the attorney that answers your question is also a criminal for giving you legal advice. David, please, please expand on that. Yeah, one of the folks that has been indicted is well respected and highly thought of. I have a constitutional attorney, a well-known fellow by the name of John Eastman. John Eastman gave some constitutional counsel to President Trump, and he has been indicted for, he's a lawyer being indicted for giving legal advice.

This is, it's crazy, Greg. There's Sidney Powell and John Ellis among the counsel there, they're indicted for filing a lawsuit. And of course President Trump for giving speeches and making tweets. These are supposedly criminal acts over criminal acts. And Mark Meadows for lobbying state legislatures, or Rudy Giuliani for advising state legislatures on what their constitutional authority is under the United States Constitution. People do not understand the actual basic underpinnings of the organization of society.

The underpinnings of how we organize and keep society working in a civil manner are under attack with this indictment. If you are a we the people believer in a constitutional republic, I talk about it here on the program all the time. I give out the phone number to call the Capitol switchboard, 202-224-3121. Call your congressman and tell them this is what you want them to do. Call your senator and tell them this is what you want them to do. I live in Texas.

We talk to our representatives down here. Of course, my representative is a criminal, but that's beside the point. But you know, I mean, the fact of the matter is, is, is, you know, do I want to be on this show? You're, you're, of course, well, yeah, Pastor Greg is in fact a terrorist. You don't want to necessarily hang out with this guy. I told you, pray for me.

I told you, pray for me. That's literally and it sounds funny, but it's not. That's what that's that's what's at stake here. That's what they're doing. This is the same thing as parents who go to school board meetings and say, stop shoving pornography down my child's throat and trying to change their sex. It that is child abuse. And you have the school board member telling the parent, shut up, sit down and and getting one of their security guards to grab them and physically remove them from the room. And they call the parent the domestic terrorist, even though it's the child that's being sodomized in the classroom.

But hey, that's okay. Yeah, that's not a far-fetched analogy in terms of sit up and sit down and shut up. That's apparently what people are supposed to do when they're when there are legitimate questions about the validity of an election. You still are supposed to sit down and shut up because the powers that be said, this is the result and you have to accept it, whether you think it's legitimate or not. That's another element of this.

Well, and so dangerous. And to and to go back to what Pastor said, you know that he he wasn't there for that purpose. However, if he was asked as an apolitical simply from a biblical perspective, do we as believers have a responsibility for the people that we support as our leadership? And will God judge us according to who we submit ourselves to? If we submit ourselves to sodomites, and those who worship the God of Baal, and we submit to that, we're going to receive judgment. Pastor, am I not? Am I am I inaccurate in that suggestion? Well, here's, here's how I frame it.

Okay. And here I'm thinking about, I, I think it's, it's very provable or demonstrable, that I have a really unique background, and role or roles that I've had in life. And, and I equate this to, in theology, what we call the two kingdoms. And there's a kingdom of the left and a kingdom of the right. And the king of the left is the realm of social organization, government, how we how we organize ourselves, so that we have law and order and peace and, and justice, and the rule of law. We have to do that or it's anarchy. And I'm thinking of, you know, I'm a I'm a fan of the Old West and what went on there.

And my ancestors helped pioneer California. But, man, I'll tell you, you don't want to live like that as an end game, because it was many times without a rule other than violence or the strongest hand wins. And, and this is a concern.

Anyhow, okay, the two kingdoms came to the left. That's like government stuff. And there has to be a norming norm in this stuff.

And what's the norming norm for the United States of America? Well, what it is is the Constitution. I've got a I've got a painting, a print of the USS Constitution directly behind me there by the lamp. Okay, I keep that on the wall.

I didn't I don't have room. But I in the past, I've had the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, all framed and hung on my wall. As a reminder, that's kingdom left stuff. And, and especially, we look at the Constitution for how we that's the that's the law of the land. And in the preamble, it says we the people, which means that we are a constitutional republic.

But at the end of the day, our representational government is backed up by we the people who established that constitution who voted it in. And and so we abide by that. That's the common ground.

And and the methodology is E Pluribus Unum, out of many one. And, and because we do live in an immigrant country, we do live in a diverse society. So how are we going to get along without punching each other out all the time, we use the Constitution to arbitrate and to define how we're going to do this. And chief among the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment. There's a reason why it's there a chronological reason why it's there. And we have rights, whether it's freedom of the press or freedom of people to express themselves, or to ask questions, okay, without being persecuted or prosecuted. That's why that's there. And we have checks and balances. That's that's Antonin Scalia, he gave testimony one time or watch upon C-SPAN in Congress, and he says the most important thing about the United States is checks and balances because of human nature.

And we need that. And one party rules. Actually, if we may, maybe you can go to the Kingdom of the Right. I will go to the Kingdom of the Right. I defer to the law expert here, okay? You can correct any misstatements on my part, but let me go to the Kingdom of the Right. Good point, Dave.

Like I say, he's adult supervision for me. The Kingdom of the Right, just as the Constitution is the norm of the Kingdom of the Left, the Kingdom of the Right is what? The Word of God for Christians.

And I would include Jewish people from the Old Testament, right? Well, and I and yeah, and I would suggest that it's not just for Christians, it's for our country. I mean, what made our country great was the recognition that our rights are endowed, not not handed to us, but endowed, literally put in us by God when he created us.

And I'll cheat a little bit here, Dave. But for instance, in the Civil War, Lincoln was accused of ignoring the Constitution and operating illegally. And he was actually making an appeal back to the Declaration of Independence, which didn't have the same legal status as the Constitution. But it's a foundational document that makes this country possible. And so Lincoln, he was noble. He exercised nobility in in how he went about that.

And okay, I leave that behind. King of the Right stuff, though, that's the Bible. And, and, and here, again, with my background and theological orientation, we are very careful about we do it in a proper way, distinguished King, right King left, like law and gospel. How are we saved? Are we saved by our works?

No, we're saved by the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who died on the cross for our sins. And do we does that mean the law doesn't exist? Or we can ignore or close the book on the Old Testament? No, it means that we violated that law. And therefore God doesn't violate his own law, but he sends his son to fulfill the requirements of the law.

And then to die in our place. We who deserve death and damnation because of our violation of the law. And so we understand distinctions. But these are not contradictions. They're complimentary, in terms of law, gospel and two kingdoms, and all of that.

And at the end of the day, King of the Right is about the kingdom of Jesus Christ, he says, my kingdom is not of this world. And, and, and, but we occupy, don't we, a foot in both kingdoms, we're citizens of two kingdoms, aren't we? And we have responsibilities to both. And for me, the ultimate consideration is, I took an oath of office more than once in law enforcement. I vowed to support to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That's a vow I took, not to the state, not to my political party, but to God. Amen. Yeah, that's why we have the oath.

It's an oath to God. Yep. Okay, absolutely. Absolutely.

And I think we've done a good job of letting America know where your heart is. Let me finish with this. Okay, good.

Then I left law enforcement. And I took on my ordination vows before God in the same God of the universe, the creator of all. Okay, that's both legally and theologically understood in that way, the God of the universe, and my God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, just just just to be clear which God we're talking about, pastor to the Lord into the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Word of God. And there's, again, no contradiction with the other vow. It's complimentary and it addresses the human condition, both the need for social order and the rule of law, but also how we govern ourselves as Christians spiritually by the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that, I believe, gives America a pretty good understanding of the man that Pastor Stephen Lee is.

And I think that's an understanding that they should know. This is a good and decent man that's been for, you know what, just about every headline crisis in our lifetime. He's been there to contribute.

It hasn't come up. He was there at Columbine. He was involved after in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shootings.

The list goes on and includes actually international work in America, Samoa and Africa and Haiti after earthquake. And so it's just it goes on and on. And so with those things in mind, I think it's important for America as time goes forward. And the other folks try to portray this man as a criminal. They need to know what's in his heart. I think we've learned today a good deal of what's in his heart, and that's important. But I do think that folks also need to understand some of the possible penalties that are involved.

This is serious business. There's a mandatory minimum of five years in prison if there's a conviction. There's not a probation. There's not a home confinement. There's not a community service. If there's a conviction, there's five years in prison, up to 20.

But there's a mandatory minimum of five years in prison. This is very serious business that they've unveiled these charges involving Reverend Lee and the other co-defendants. And you mentioned before, Greg, about that you have the link below regarding the defense fund for Pastor Lee. I might mention people have projected, I've read that somewhere along the line are thinking that President Trump's legal bills in this instance may run to $30 million. We're going to give vigorous defense to Pastor Lee, but we actually have to get local counsel in Georgia.

We actually have to have extra staff to do the research and do the background on this. This is not an inexpensive undertaking for Pastor Lee. And as you know, being a minister is not a wealth building operation. It's not a situation where somebody gets rich doing this service to mankind. And so Pastor Lee is going to need help.

And we're blessed in that regard because Dave Smith of the Illinois Family Institute has generously participated in helping out with the legal defense fund and the Illinois Family Institute at illinoisfamily.org slash contribute has a drop down menu on their contribute page where you can designate a donation to support the legal defense work necessary for Pastor Lee. Something else too that we need to make sure we bring into this that hasn't been talked about yet this morning, I know you've talked about it in other interviews, but that is you've already had a victory against this Fannie Willis. You mentioned a little bit, I know you briefly touched on I think maybe you did last half hour. But I just would like you to go into that again and and and and explain again, because I think it's important. Yeah, we did. We talked about how can you be a a criminal in a case where you you didn't even meet the criterion, according to a judge in Illinois, to actually even be a witness.

That's exactly right. And to compel somebody from out of state to come someplace, a state court has to has to comply with the law of the state that you're trying to get to cooperate in compelling the witness. Consequently, they have to send send the subpoena and a certificate from a judge in Georgia to to Illinois to try in the effort to compel Pastor Lee to go to Georgia and and be a witness in the in the grand jury investigation. The judge in Illinois, after we went through the hearings and we went through the evidence that they presented regarding that, regarding Pastor Lee, the judge in Illinois literally, literally.

And you can look this up. It's 22 MR 69 is the case number in Kendall County, Illinois. And the judge's findings says Stephen Lee is not a material witness in this case and we will not compel him to go to Georgia. And so they said, if they can't even give the evidence to convince the judge that he's even a witness, it just boggles the mind to think that he's a defendant. Well, and again, I think this speaks to, you know, the question, the line of questioning that I was asking was, you know, were you ever connected to the campaign? No. Do you know the defendant?

No. You know, I mean, talk about being at the very fringe edge. Now there's an article in talking point memo, a reporter that claims that he was the one who broke a bunch of this story and tries to connect the Reverend to someone named Floyd and and someone named a woman named Tootie and and and and and all of this circumstantial stuff. But but but once again, you know, there's there's no link, if you will, between the Reverend and and and campaign activities and Floyd even says in his interview, I had no involvement with the Trump campaign at the time that I was having any conversations with the Reverend in in inquiries about about providing chaplaincy, urgency and and and and ministerial assistance. Well, that would be Mr. Floyd at this juncture, of course, we're not going to get in, we can't I understand.

I get it. I understand the details for a courtroom, right? For us at that juncture, you know, we're talking about the things that are in the indictment that are part of that part parcel of public knowledge. But I will tell you this other thing.

I did have a conference yesterday. I was part of a conference with the with the prosecutors and they wanted to. And they have, in fact, set the bond for Reverend Lee at seventy five thousand dollars for him to not be not be not be arrested and detained. We will be traveling to Georgia in the next few days and we'll see what happens at that juncture. Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to visit with a judge in Georgia. But something else to looking for seventy five thousand dollar bond, which means that he's got to come up with, I believe, seventy five hundred dollars cash in order in order to meet that bond in order in order to be able to come back home after after that hearing. So that's right. So that's so that's why we need those contributions to the Illinois family dot org forward slash contribute and and do the dropdown to Reverend Steve.

That's Illinois family dot org forward slash contribute. And and I believe there's probably someone out there that's going to see this or listen to this that could probably just write a check for seventy five hundred dollars like right now. And and and we'd be done with this.

I want to get this in here, too. And that is that that, you know, and it's kind of been brushed under because the media didn't want to focus on this. But this D.A. released all the information about the grand jury, about their deliberations, about how they supposedly were going to even vote before the vote ever even took place.

It was put up on the Web site and then somebody realized that, oh, maybe maybe maybe we shouldn't have done that. And and pulled down. Talk to me about the illegalities that are associated with that. And and who who prosecutes the prosecutor for breaking the law? Yeah, that was however that happened, that was actually a criminal act. The breach of the grand jury sanctity or secrecy is, in fact, a criminal act itself. And the indictment inside the indictments themselves were, in fact, published in advance of the grand jury voting on the indictments.

They hadn't voted on them and yet they were published. And apparently the things that were published that the grand jury would later that evening actually vote upon. And there's been leaks beyond that through the course of the course of the conduct of the grand jury.

And any kind of leak is, in fact, a violation of the law. So whoever was involved in that should, in fact, be themselves prosecuted for violating the sanctity of the grand jury. And the interesting thing about that is, of course, there's 19 defendants. That means, oh, at least 38 lawyers, in which case somewhere along the line we're going to be, a group of us somewhere between us, probably going to be challenging the indictments themselves because of the breach of the security of the grand jury and the legitimacy of the indictments because of the breach of the grand jury's security. So when they talk about some sort of trial for President Trump and others in March or May of next year, it's not going to happen.

It's not going to happen. And things like this will be, potentially five year prison sentence will be hanging over the heads of 19 people while this is all going on. And it's going to be very, very stressful and very, very difficult for all those people. And at least 38 lawyers, because like I said, we had to have local counsel in Georgia join us in this battle for Steve Lee. And so it's amazing. It boggles the mind, and it boggles the mind that they made criminal lawyers giving advice, people petitioning state legislatures, people knocking on doors, people giving tweets, people exercising their First Amendment rights.

The list goes on that they're trying to make illegal all the things that what, make America. Pastor, I know that your heart in all of this is to see the Lord glorified, to see all of this division and bitterness and all of this dispelled by turning to the cross and allowing the redemptive act of Christ and the Spirit of the Lord to change and turn hearts. We've got about three minutes left. Would you take a moment and just pray for our nation? Absolutely. I'd be honored to do so. Let's pray.

Yes. Father in heaven, we thank you Lord for the many blessings you give to us. We're so grateful, most especially for your grace, your love, your mercy expressed in your son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, in whose name I pray here. We thank you for his coming, his advent into our poor, hurting human condition. We thank you Lord for his life, the life that he led that was perfect, the life that we fail and have failed and will fail to live in perfection.

Even though we aim for that, we always miss the mark. We thank you for his suffering and death, knowing that he was going to the cross and yet willing to do so. And his prayer, Father, your will be done, not mine. And then going to the cross and being raised up on the cross, having been tortured already, and then the torture and slow death of the cross. And even there, thinking of his mother and telling the Apostle John, the disciple John, take care of mom.

And she's now your mother and mom, he's your son. And then looking out of the crowd, the very crowd who's mocking him, yelling and screaming and laughing at him. And then, rather than responding in kind, he literally takes the way of the cross, and he prays to his father, to you, Lord, and says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And then by his resurrection, Lord, he gives us that hope that transcends even despair and death, and that we have the promise of eternal life and a free gift of that eternal life by simply receiving Jesus Christ into our hearts and lives. And just looking to him in faith for forgiveness, and being filled with the Holy Spirit to be empowered to live the life you've called us to lead, not on the basis of earning heaven by our works.

We do the good things not because we're earning heaven, but because we have heaven, and we cannot but in love respond with our lives. Lord, in the days ahead, give us strength. And we pray for our country. We pray for our leaders, we pray for those who have served in the military and as first responders, and I know having been to so many law enforcement funerals and first responder funerals, the tremendous toll it can take, and the wreckage to both body and mind it can cause, Lord. And we pray for those people who protect and serve and defend this country, this great country, not that we're better than people in other parts of the world, Lord, but that we're governed according to the truth, that we live in a fallen world, and we need checks and balances, and we need the rule of law, and not just the strongest voice, shouting down the weaker voices and the stronger arm, pinning down those who are weaker. Lord, we pray that you would bless and preserve us not according to our our our worthiness, but according to our need.

And we pray all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen. Amen. A beautiful way to end our segment together. Thank you, gentlemen, so much for being with us today. Thank you, Reverend, we'll continue to be praying for you. David, thank you for being a champion for truth and for justice and for freedom and for liberty. We greatly appreciate that it is an honor for me to be associated with both of you gentlemen. Folks, we're going to take our break. We'll be back. Melanie Collette joins me on the other side. We're going to talk a little bit about tonight's debate. We'll be back with more Children Generation Radio coming up hour two straight ahead.